Entries Tagged 'On the Edge' ↓

We have barely started our holiday shopping and here it is 1 day, 13 Hours, and 52 minutes ’til the big guy comes down our chimney on Christmas.

We have a good reason for the procrastination (one that also helps to explain our sparse posts as of late) - we are part-time elves during the holidays.

I have included a snapshot for you all. Feel free to click our picture to enjoy a little Holiday Cheer courtesy of EXCELER8ion.

Happy Holidays!!

Newspapers: with a clear an unobstructed view, you can see for miles.

Part II (read part I here if you haven’t already).

In my last post, I lit the newspaper industry up because they continue to raise prices despite continuing declines in their coverage and readership. Actually, I said that their quality is suspect as well. While I had my flame thrower out, I said newspaper advertisers and ad agencies have some serious problems with a lack of imagination and often do the same old thing with their campaigns because they fear the less known (which takes the form of the Internet more often than not). I’m applying this broad brush because I believe these problems to be common and that their alternative - creative, ground-breaking management ideas, business practices and advertising campaigns to be the exception.

Do I have any solutions? Sure, they’re full of hard choices, and it’s about time to make them.

First: get a clue about your real profit margins.

The problem with all these rate hikes is that the papers are trying to maintain an artificial profit margin (around 20%) in a market OR a cost structure that won’t support it. Are further cuts the answer? Only if you’re willing to jettison whole products (a good idea in some areas) and not just the number of people that support them (bad idea in most cases). Most of the cuts that could be made while maintaining business as usual have all been made. I would argue that they’ve actually gone too far, just like leading editors and publishers who have some balls have said. When former San Jose Mercury News Publisher, Jay Harris flipped Knight Ridder the bird, he was making the kind of hard choice that I’m championing. Mr. Harris believed that you have to fight to maintain the quality of newspapers, but that when you do, you not only save your product, it serves the advertisers footing the bill just as well. Mr. Harris was right when he took his stand back in 2001. Just lobbing off heads to make an annual report look presentable to Wall Street, as Mr. Ridder and his Executive team did, only served to stall Knight Ridder’s undoing. It DID NOTHING to stop it. Now Tribune is facing a similar fate due to the same kind of management thinking. Others like McClatchy are thinking that a good defense, where only investing in newspapers in growing markets, will save their hide. This tactic has some merit, but it’s just another stall tactic. Unless you address the problems with your core product value head on, you end up in the same place. Congrats McClatchy - you’ll survive doing the same old thing for a few more years than Knight Ridder did. Take a good look around you, someone will be eating your lunch soon.

Re-investing in your business

Investing in your business sounds like such a simple strategy that anyone would be doing it. Here’s the problem. We have this thinking that if we’re managing a cash cow that we should just strip out the costs and hold on tight for as long as the market will allow. After working for the print Yellow Pages for GTE, Pacific Bell, and SBC for over a decade and another five plus for a newspaper organization, I’ve become intimately familiar with these practices. Here’s the disconnect. The newspapers don’t truly invest or manage their Internet operations outside of this vacuum. When a budget cut arises because a major property just missed their Q4 revenue, their online operations are asked to go on a diet right along with their print brethren. Consider this also - you can’t just throw up a virtual wall around online operations and say "grow this," while cutting print. Almost 100% of all the editorial and advertising content that power online news sites is from the newspaper. Online news sites do not have reporters and they don’t have news organizations - they are online publishing and sales operations. If you’re busy wringing costs out of the reason people come to the www version of your newspaper you’re in for some trouble. Just as your typical MBA would suggest milking the cash cow, they’d also say invest in a growth business.

Change assumptions to change cost structure

Next up I’ll discuss how newspapers can better change their cost structure by changing their core business. But, I’ve taken enough of your time for today so I’ll check back in tomorrow with our next installment.

–Julian

Technorati Tags: Newspapers, Print Media, Knight Ridder, McClatchy, Jay Harris, San Jose Mercury News

Part I

It’s just around the corner from rate-hike season at the newspapers and the advertiser back lash is growing stronger every year. Since newspapers are a business, and they’re in business to make money, it’s really hard to fault them for wanting to make more of it. Their old line (and I mean old) about their rates going up because their value is growing…that and the thinking behind it (or lack thereof) has got to stop.

Frankly, the newspapers don’t have a choice but to charge more even though their product value is declining. Why? Because they haven’t adapted their business to the times and they’ve made themselves slaves to Wall Street. The newspapers are dying not only because they’re not adapting quickly enough, but because there are too many better advertiser alternatives that cost less money.

Oh sure, you want an example to back up my drivel?

Let’s talk about the big Kahuna of newspaper profits: job ads. No, it’s not the sale ads from Macy’s - those are the ones you hear about though. Why put a job ad in the newspaper when you can get a better response from a less expensive (or free) online alternative? And why should you pay what have quickly become the ridiculous rates of the big online job boards, like CareerBuilder or Monster, when you can often get what you need from a free Craigslist ad (or one that costs pennies on the dollar in comparison to those mentioned)?

The answer has a lot to do with a lack of imagination on the part of the advertisers (in this case HR marketers) and ad agencies that support this model. It’s like the old saying, “well, you’re not going to get fired for buying IBM.” It’s the accepted practice - the road most taken, the one that has zero perceived risk and almost the same amount of actual value. It’s a lot of lazy or uneducated HR marketing departments and the ad agencies who are similarly lazy and uninformed, who like the newspapers, are only too happy to take a fool’s money.

Question: Since the newspapers are dying anyway, might it be a good time to try something different? Fault them I will, for applying the same old bullshit tactics to the new problems that they face.

The problem didn’t start and won’t end with the advertiser rates.

It starts with the core product: content, which typically includes news, editorial, information, resources, and don’t forget advertising. Yes, people do buy newspapers for the ads. Even when they don’t, when the ads are good (relevant, timely) they can be useful. Not all content is good content and that goes for editorial content and advertising content. But let’s get back to the news and editorial content which is the primary reason for buying a newspaper. How should newspapers respond to the fact that their political bias pisses their readers off to the point that they stop reading? Bias is one thing, lying by omission is another. Social media like blogs have demonstrated that all media organizations have an agenda and consistently pursue that agenda at the expense of mere facts. And print media lie with the best of them (T.V) but they do it while acting like they’re legit. The bullshit isn’t any better on one end of the political spectrum either. Regardless if your newspaper is bleeding heart liberal or right wing zealot, the majority of us are turned off by patronizing messaging. It’s hard to like someone when they look at you as fundamentally unintelligent. Pay us some respect - you might get some in return. Yes, it is a problem when you believe your own bullshit. Just stop - it’s not working.

On the advertising side things are a little better, but not by much. It’s not that the advertising side of the house is any better than their higher-than-thou editorial brethren, it’s just that they aren’t held to the same ideal. Instead of honesty, balanced information and facts we expect sales and marketing people to stick a hot poker up our ass and tell us all the while that it feels good. You’d have to admit that it’s a different standard.

Tomorrow I’ll put my money where my mouth is and provide some recommendations on how to change things.

For those of you who read me regularly (all three of you) and wonder why I am so passionate about this subject it is because I have such love and respect for the core value that news and content organizations deliver. When done right, not only is there beauty and utility in what is produced, it transcends the print medium. Even if you don’t read newspapers, the arguments I’m making effect the content that you read online.

–Julian

Technorati Tags: Newspapers, Print Media, Online News

“ Scrybe™ is a groundbreaking online organizer that caters to today´s lifestyle in a cohesive and intuitive way.” -Scrybe home page.

The much anticipated Scrybe online personal organizer has launched their beta today. I’m writing about it here for two reasons. First, who isn’t interested in ways to be more productive? As far as tools go, the quality of the axe you swing does make a difference, even if the skill of the operator is more important. Second, it’s a great example of how you might use savvy online marketing techniques to promote your effort (be it a recruitment campaign, local, national, or even international, hello world, launch) as Scrybe is going for.

Scrybe made all the cool watcher lists due to a knock-your-socks-off video that they circulated on video sharing sites like YouTube. The video has been described as a savvy use of modern online marketing. Take a look at their home page and all the ‘A list’ blogger testimonials and it’s pretty obvious that Scrybe made the blogging digerati a key part of their social media marketing plan as well. Call it what you want: guerrilla marketing, word-of-mouth-marketing, buzz marketing, social media marketing, social media optimization. Whatever! I’m calling it a great example of how to make a ton of people aware of your stuff so that they’ll want to someday buy your stuff when you’ve got a budget of…well, pretty much nothing. Judge for yourself.

Remember folks, this is only the launch of Scrybe’s beta - not the final product. If you’ve watched the video, you’ll get an idea of how their use of the latest web technologies (like Ajax) are used to create what would appear to be, highly functional and useful tools.

Useful tools eh?

OK, here are a couple that make my list. Offline sync, once the Achilles’ heel of web based programs, is handled with aplomb, as are paper output modes designed to appeal to the luddite or PDA Hipster in all of us. And it all looks easy to use - dare I say it - even enjoyable to use.

So here’s the thing. I’m always on the hunt for better ways to organize my life (I use David Allen’s framework) . Yes, sometimes my lust for new tools even outweighs my desire for productivity itself. But, never for long, and I’m quick to apply a .22 to the head of any self described productivity tool if it gets in my way. For now, I’ve signed up to be part of the beta with about four different e-mails in hopes of getting in on the action. So far, I haven’t heard a peep from Scrybe. I imagine this blog post might help. At least it will if Scrybe is as up on their social media marketing as they appear to be. Because if they are, they’re monitoring the blog buzz on their launch right now and they’ll see this. So, what are you waiting for Scrybe? I can’t write my review until you give me the keys.

Technorati Tags: iScrybe, iScrybe.com, Organizer, Calendar, PIM, Personal Information Manager, Life Hacks, GTD, Getting things done, Time Management, To-do Lists, PowerLists, ThoughtPad, Social Media Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Interactive Marketing

Sergey Brin of Google presents at a U.C. Berkeley class “Search Engines: Technology, Society and Business”

With the addition of six full college classes from U.C. Berkeley now on Google Video (over 250 hours), it’s getting to feel more like I might be able to attend someday in the not too distant future.

“Visitors will find a half-dozen Berkeley courses in their entirety, including “Physics for Future Presidents,” “Integrative Biology,” and “Search Engines: Technology, Society and Business,” featuring a lecture by Google co-founder Sergey Brin.”

Who knows, maybe Berkeley will pull out all the stops on their open source educational experiment and start doing this with livecasts and open up their class Q&A for the world’s students to participate. If done right, can you imagine the potential dialog and learning that could take place? It boggles my mind. Click here to see U.C. Berkeley’s dedicated Google video page (they’re the first college to have their own dedicated video page on Google).